STEM Activities for Christmas

It’s always fun to integrate the holidays and seasons into what you teach or the playful learning activities that are available for your kids or students to explore, which is why I love seasonal STEM and engineering challenges.

Plans for a Better Tomorrow has a great series (that’s ongoing right now, but you can see the basics of each idea on this post) of winter/Christmas STEM challenges, in which students are given supplies to make a specific thing, such as the tallest snowman or a fortress made out of marshmallows that can best withstand attack. So fun and clever!

Le Chaim on the Right has a great collection of 25 days of Christmas STEM ideas collected from around the Internet, and there’s a lot of fun stuff there. My daughter’s class did dissolving candy canes the other day and they all thought it was really cool. There’s also a snow storm in a jar, forming crystals on a Christmas tree, tinkering trees, Christmas light experiments for older kids and much more.

I’m certainly adding some of these to the list of winter break activities to have on hand for the girl!

[Photo via Le Chaim on the Right.]

Check out these Science Activity books

It is important to teach STEAM to children because it helps them develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. STEM learning also helps children understand how the world works and how to apply that knowledge to real-world situations.

One of the most important benefits of STEAM learning is that it helps children develop critical thinking skills. STEM learning is all about finding creative solutions to problems, and this type of thinking is essential in today’s ever-changing world.

Another benefit of STEM learning is that it helps children understand how the world works. By understanding how scientific and mathematical concepts work, children can better understand the world around them. This knowledge can then be applied to real-world situations, such as environmental issues or designing a new product.

Finally, STEM learning is interesting and engaging for children. It helps them to see the world in a different way and to think about problems in new and innovative ways. This type of learning can spark a child’s curiosity and creativity, and lead to a lifelong love of learning.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

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